


Cash & Carry

by Nightdog_Barks



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Backstory, Drug Dealing, Marijuana, Medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-04
Updated: 2008-09-04
Packaged: 2017-10-18 05:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/185569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightdog_Barks/pseuds/Nightdog_Barks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Every few months, Wilson drives to New York, where he meets a guy named Dave ...</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Cash & Carry

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in 2006, late in Season 1 and well before the events of episode 2.11, "Need to Know." Sparked by a plotbunny from [](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/profile)[**blackmare_9**](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/), who said "I wonder ... " 1,002 words.

_**Cash & Carry**_  
 **TITLE:** Cash  & Carry  
 **AUTHOR:** [](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/profile)[**nightdog_writes**](http://nightdog-writes.livejournal.com/)  
 **CHARACTERS:** Wilson, an OMC.  
 **RATING:** A mild "R", for explicit drug references.  
 **WARNINGS:** No.  
 **SPOILERS:** None.  
 **SUMMARY:** _Every few months, Wilson drives to New York, where he meets a guy named Dave ..._  
 **DISCLAIMER:** Don't own 'em. Never will.  
 **AUTHOR NOTES:** This story is set in 2006, late in Season 1 and well before the events of episode 2.11, "Need to Know." Sparked by a plotbunny from [](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/profile)[**blackmare_9**](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/) , who said "I wonder ... " 1,002 words.  
 **BETA:** My intrepid First Readers, with especial thanks to [](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/profile)[**pwcorgigirl**](http://pwcorgigirl.livejournal.com/) , [](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/profile)[**blackmare_9**](http://blackmare-9.livejournal.com/) , and [](http://mer-duff.livejournal.com/profile)[**mer_duff**](http://mer-duff.livejournal.com/). The things I learn from my First Readers. *g*

 **Cash & Carry**

  
Every few months, Wilson drives to New York, where he meets a guy named Dave, who knows a guy named Steve, who knows a guy named Nat, who knows a guy ...

Well, Wilson doesn't really know how many guys there are, and he doesn't _want_ to know. All that's important is that Dave has something to sell, and Wilson wants to buy.

On the days he drives to New York, he plans it around the minutiae of his real life, the one where he's a law-abiding, upright citizen, making appointments in his Dayplanner for patient consultations, telling his admin he's going to Foundation meetings. He makes sure the last message on his answering machine is always from Julie, reminding him of this month's stultifyingly boring dinner party. Any one of these, should House decide to follow the trail, will lead down yet more blind alleys -- the patient consultation that turns out to be in Piscataway, the Foundation meeting in Philly. And the dinner parties? Wilson still considers those messages his ace in the hole, a hand that House will never dare to call.

On the days he drives to New York, he thinks about how he doesn't _have_ to drive to New York -- about how he could do all of this in Princeton, where the dealers buy and sell the stuff not on some gritty street corner, but in the dorms, the classrooms, even in the Student Union. Hell, even some of the _professors_ are in on the game. And unless it gets out of hand, with too many large shipments or some innocent scholarship kid from East Cowcatcher, Wyoming getting fucked over by a bad player, the cops simply stay out of it. It's not worth their time or trouble to bust a bunch of college stoners. It's just Wilson's ridiculous sense of propriety that won't let him shit in his own nest. Here in Midtown the police are focused on the Port Authority Bus Terminal and the only people asking questions are the out-of-towners looking for the quickest way up to West 42nd to catch the _Lion King_ matinee.

And here is where he comes to this little sidewalk café, to meet guys like Dave.

"So who's your friend, man?" Dave asks, and Wilson tears his eyes away from the product, packed tight in a small, rolled-up freezer bag, folded over at the ends to fit inside an equally small leather camera case. He's never gotten over how much the damn stuff looks like oregano, and he can't keep from visualizing sprinkling it over pizzas, into spaghetti sauce, on top of garlic-crusted flatbreads.

"What?" he says.

Dave looks at him with some sympathy, thinking, no doubt, that Wilson's had a little toke of the stuff before the meeting this afternoon.

"The friend you keep talking about, that guy who'd maybe benefit from this?"

"Oh." Wilson shakes his head. "He's ... nobody. It's not important."

Dave regards him quizzically, tips his sunglasses and looks at Wilson over the rims. "Dude, I'm just asking if."

"No," Wilson says. "No. It's not for him." And it's not -- that's the ironic thing, if there are any _ironies_ still associated with deals like this. House is way beyond, _light-years_ beyond this penny-ante shit. He's onto the hard stuff, the _controlled substances_ like rosemary and thyme. It'd just be another useless conversation anyway, one like all the other useless conversations where Wilson suggests an alternative to the little white tombstones and House gives him that withering look that means "no" before he even says it.

Dave shrugs. "Whatever you say, Bob." He nods at the black leather pouch. "Your usual," he says. "Tops only, dense buds, hydroponically grown with loving care by the happiest Canadians you'd ever want to meet. No stems, no seeds, only the finest PACS-certified organic product."

Wilson pushes the business envelope across the table, the brown paper clearly labeled _INTEROFFICE MAIL_ , the one with so many fingerprints on it Wilson can reasonably claim he never knew what he was handing off. Dave picks it up and glances inside; there are more fifties and twenties in there than Wilson wants to think about, but Dave simply nods and drops the packet into the Dean & DeLuca bag at his feet. He zips the camera pouch shut and nudges it across the bistro table. In the distance, the whistle for the Port Imperial/Weehawken ferry sounds.

"Sure there's nothing else I can get for you? Got some very nice Persian Red in this week, special deal for my best customers."

"No," Wilson says. He opens his coat, stuffs the camera case into the chest pocket. "No, this is ... this is fine."

"Okay." Dave stands up and stretches, bending back a little as if easing a crick in his spine. "You let me know, though, okay?" He grins, looking somewhat like a disheveled version of Johnny Depp. Evidently a tourist thinks so too, and there's a shout of "Hey, _Johnny!_ " and Dave flips around, winking widely at the delighted gawkers.

Wilson swallows hard and ducks his head. Luckily, no one notices, and he's able to walk away, striding down the busy sidewalk back to the bus, which he takes back to his car, parked on a quiet sidestreet courtesy of a med school colleague who rents to a guy who lives in a brownstone nearby and sublets to a guy who knows a guy.

And that's it, the entire network, Wilson thinks as he slides behind the wheel of his Volvo and fastens his seat belt. Guys who know guys, people who know people, one great big fucking game of six degrees of separation. He feels the camera case resting against his breastbone, and finally allows himself to smile a little, thinking how he'll parcel it out.

 _Mrs. Kowalski, breast. Mr. O'Brian, prostate. Sarah McKendall, bone._

And so on, and so on, and so. Guys who know guys, people who know people. Or ...

 _"Hakuna matata, you idiot,"_ as House would say.

~ fin


End file.
